Chinese technology company EACON Mining says a commercial order for its mine truck autonomy system from gold giant Zijin Mining is another key milestone after it recently expanded in the quarry sector.
EACON said it would supply an autonomous system for a battery-powered XCMG EX80 mine truck at Zijin’s Zijinshan copper-gold mine, where it ran a proof-of-concept project earlier this year.
Zijinshan started operations in 1993 and reportedly has 20 years of remaining mine life.
Zijin is said to be transitioning to EVs which accounted for 45% of its fleet in September this year.
EACON said the XCMG EX80 had been modified to be fitted with its autonomous haulage solution (AHS) hardware and data interfaces.
“EACON’s complete suite of AHS capabilities, including the fleet management system, ORCASTRA Conductor, the onboard autonomy system, ORCASTRA Pilot, and the safety and task collaboration system on ancillary equipment, ORCASTRA Crew, are fully OEM-agnostic and power-agnostic, as validated by the successful partnerships with Yutong, Tonly, LGMG and now XCMG across various models and commodities,” EACON said.
The company said it was also supplying autonomous technology for truck fleets at two quarries in China.
Contractor China National Building Material Group (CNBM) is using EACON’s AHS on 29 EY70E electric mining trucks at the circa-eight million tonnes per annum Pingyin quarry while iron ore producer Shougang Group is using the EACON technology on 10 EY70E trucks at its Shuichang site.
“The [Shuichang] trucks will be deployed for a newly established aggregate production line,” EACON said.
It said Shougang planned to repurpose waste dump material at the iron ore mine for aggregate production after mining ends.
EACON said the Yutong had sold more than 600 of the EY70E 70-ton-payload (63 tonne) electric trucks since they were launched in August 2021.
“Yutong is a key OEM partner of EACON.
“Another jointly developed, battery-powered autonomous model, the EY60E, has been operating in a fleet of 20 at the Fushan quarry since May 2023.
“This fleet has collectively travelled over 470,000km, reducing emissions by more than 3000t.”
